Business Schools Lack Direction, Report Says

The most detailed assessment of the nation’s business schools in nearly 30 years found widespread complacency, poor planning and a lack of contact with the business world.

But the 372-page report, released Monday at a national convention of business schools, drew immediate fire from deans and corporate officials who said the report didn’t go far enough in addressing social and ethical issues, including minority recruitment.

“While both corporate and academic leaders believe business schools are performing reasonably well at present, they are in danger of drifting casually toward the 21st Century, without careful thought and strategic planning about the roles their graduates will play in the changing world of business,” the study said.

It chided schools for preaching long-term planning in the corporate world, but doing little planning themselves beyond the next semester.

Businesses, for their part, “typically feel they can safely ignore most business school research with impunity,” the report said.

The report, “Management Education and Development: Drift or Thrust into the 21st Century,” was commissioned by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, an accrediting body whose 254 member schools award about 55% of all business degrees awarded annually.

Three-Year Study

The report was compiled by Lyman Porter and Lawrence McKibbin after a three-year study of the nation’s business schools. The researchers interviewed deans, professors, placement directors and others on 60 campuses, as well as chief executives, college recruiters and those responsible for executive development from 50 private-sector organizations.

In addition, the information includes results from 10,000 extensive questionnaires mailed to a similar audience.

“I was disappointed that after three years of work, the politics of an organization this large seems to have watered down everything,” said John Rosenblum, dean of the University of Virginia’s graduate school of business.

“It just wasn’t strong enough,” he added. “I think one could have left with the impression that we really are all right. I don’t think we’re all right.”

Porter, a professor at the Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Irvine, said the report could not answer all the concerns of the business or educational communities. But after the research was complete, he said he was pleased to see how well the corporations thought of the preparations for their employees.

“The reactions from the business community were more positive than we had anticipated,” Porter said.

McKibbin, a professor of management at the University of Oklahoma, agreed.

“When we went in we expected to be tongue-lashed by our colleagues in the corporate world,” McKibbin said. “That didn’t happen at all.’

Bob Pike, a spokesman for Procter & Gamble, said the report failed to address “the diversity of our work force. We’re looking very carefully at things like the minority enrollments in business colleges and other social issues. Our company and many major firms are very concerned about these things.”

The report concluded that business schools were lax in forecasting and meeting trends in the business community.

“Complacency and self-satisfaction appear to be the dominant attitudes in many schools,” Porter and McKibbin reported. “There is little perceived need for major changes in the way in which collegiate management education is carried out.”

“This is our opportunity to see that and change our complacency,” said Richard Lewis, dean of the business school at the University of Michigan. “This could be the single, most important factor coming out of the study.”

Since the last major study of business schools in 1959 by Stanford University business Prof. James Howell, the number of bachelor’s degrees in business increased from 50,000 to about 250,000 in 1985, and master’s degrees increased from 5,000 to 60,000.

The study cites the need for improved communication between business and business schools, greater program diversity among the schools, more varied and generalized curriculum at each school and greater planning for life-long executive education.

Corporations surveyed seemed reasonably satisfied with the job business schools are doing preparing future employees. But the report said “managers and executives would like to see more ‘realistic, practical, hands-on’ education with greater emphasis on behaviorally oriented subject matter in the curriculum and the development of ‘people’ skills.’ ”